"I'm Back"... and rusty.

I've spent the last seven hours tracking down this blog, trying to get into the email address from 2011 in order to ACCESS the bloody thing, and then a period of trance-like, compulsory reading... pouring over my own words from a time long ago enough that it's almost as if the last few years never happened. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I can't decide exactly how to feel, but my cheeks are wet and my eyes sting. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (That sentence right there should tell you so much about one of my greatest personal pit-falls. I'm leaving it because I haven't slept in three days and I know that sometimes THIS frame of mind will teach the better-rested version of me some valuable lessons. C'mon, BIG D... you CANNOT "decide" how you feel!! You oughta know better by now. The ONLY thing you can really "decide" is how much you choose to numb yourself to those feelings.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fair enough. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm sad. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm really, really sad. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's 2016 and we just had our first day of spring. My last post was in 2011. It was a distracted and disjointed piece of writing. (Isn't all of my writing?) I had plans to escape to Moab. It was like I gave up on the story right before the third-act reveal... right before the shit hit the fan. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- What happened?? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Did I escape?! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh... I escaped alright. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just not exactly in the way you might think. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There's more white hair in my beard now that I've reached the magical age of 33 which we attribute to Jesus as his time of death. Frankly, despite my tears, I must always remain grateful that I'm still breathing at THIS age. Seriously... I'm surprised I out-lived him. The list of things I should NOT have survived has gotten MUCH longer. I've wrecked numerous cars, a motorcycle, suffered multiple bleeding MRSA infections, survived a few suicide attempts, and overdosed who-knows-how-many times on nearly anything and everything you CAN overdose on. Hell, a couple of those overdoses weren't even intentional! I truly and honestly went COMPLETELY by accident, the way really I hope so many overdoses have gone... John Belushi, the bassist for Slipknot, Brad from Sublime, Philip Seymore Hoffman. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I would quit for a period of time, hold it together really well for that same period of time, then... poof, one day it feels like all the good is gone and you know (and I do mean, KNOW, without a shadow of a doubt) that you're a ticking time-bomb and, if left to your own devices, you WILL stumble and fall. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sometimes that fall lasts an hour. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sometimes you stay fallen for weeks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some falls span years or decades. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some falls... well, they never end. You fall right through the bottom and you don't happen to be one of us lucky ones who woke up, got taken to a hospital, or had someone there to do your breathing for you while you turn blue and flop for 30-45 minutes. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Have you ever actually done CPR on someone for 45 minutes? I'll write about that in the next blog. This one wasn't meant to be my own personal Trainspotting, but instead a combination celebration/reckoning of the nostalgia I feel for that 29-year-old who wanted to go live in Moab. I wonder where I'd be right now if he'd have followed through. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ That saying: "In 20 years it will be the things you didn't do, not the things you did do, that you most regret..." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's complete horse shit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Feeling like that does NOT take 20 years. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can easily feel that way in 5. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't even know who will see this anymore. Blogger probably isn't even a thing these days. I figured the chart I saw that said my page had thousands of views was a load of bollucks. But then I started reading the comments. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Read it or don't. The days of thrusting my writing on other people belonged to the last guy who wrote on here. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm a little more beat up than that guy, but also "harder" in some good ways. I've been to the proverbial "there" and done more than just "that"... I've done "those!" Spent a few months in jail (well, a FEW jails) and ended up walking out a much leaner, better-read, and more disciplined man than the drunk asshole in my mugshot. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In many cases I'd love to be able to go back and warn him. I'd choose to keep that Moab Dan soft and naive. -------------------------------------------------------------------- My experiences have left their marks on me, but I am not a product of my environment. Sure, the places I've gone and the people I've been around have both played a HUGE part in the person I am today. But that's peer-pressure, a desire to please, misguided love or even simply a lack of self-discipline exacerbated by a "negative" opportunity. -------------------------------------------------------------------- I'll tell you more in my next blog. I'm happy to be writing again. I'm happy to be alive. I can feel my heart beating. Words make me nervous. I can never seem to find the right ones. But DAMN do they excite me at the same time. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Words like would've, should've, could've... they're really just implements of torture in your choice of font. Love and Hate both have countless synonyms, but they are the ONLY opposites in the English language that can occupy the same space at the same time. Light and Dark can't do that. Large and Small are also mutually exclusive. But the LOVE you feel when finding the perfectly-crafted arrangement of words happens to live right next door to the HATE you feel when fruitlessly searching for the right words and coming up empty.

Moab Body Shots

A friend said: "Kiss a red rock for me!" Instead of just kissing a red rock while in Moab this weekend, I decided to do one better. I took a body shot off of her. I found a salt deposit on a red cliff face, licked it off, took a long slug of silver tequila, then bit directly into a whole lime. I won't lie... it was the manliest shot ever.

So, it turns out there is quite a job market in Moab for the adventurish and bummish... of which I am both. I will leave as soon as possible. I will make sure to still find ways to see the girls, but with no more alimony to pay, and with the possibility of keeping my office job intact whilst taking a few months off, well, it is hard to stay.

I moved to the suburbs for the girls, only to have them move away. Thought I had cleared that up, but I was wrong. Life here is full of angst and alcohol. Life in Moab is calm, quiet, serene. I can actually fill my stress leave as I drive into town there, and then feel it return in Salt Lake county.

I plan to tend bar, work as a river guide, fly hot air balloons... really just do whatever I can to make a few bucks here and there. I plan to live in a tent down the river, with a bike and a bar of soap.

IF I happen to die while living in Moab by a rattlesnake bite, water moccasin bite, tiny scorpion bite while I hike too far and dehydrated from camp... well, so be it. Have my body cremated and put in a brown paper bag. Remember three things:

1. I did NOT do it on purpose.
2. EVERYTHING goes to my daughters. I left Jenny as the beneficiary on everything, but the life insurance policies and everything I own goes to Emma and Abbi. I want college and weddings paid for. I want my ashes scattered over the rim in Moab. Let the wind carry me down to the Colorado and then eventually to the sea. No Mormon bullshit at the service. Let Spencer tell the story about how we found "FUCK" in the stars and then everyone enjoy their time outside in my honor. I want the house she buys purchased in THEIR name. She can live there with her guy if she wants, but if I find out my life insurance went to whiskey, Wendover, and sex toys... well, I will haunt them! ;)
3. I love those little girls more than anything in this world. They are everything to me. They make life make sense. Whatever you tell them about me... never let them doubt my love for them.

Sort of a weird title for a Last Will and Testament but I don't have plans on letting my life end at 29. I plan on owning Moab. I plan on getting everything out of almost 30 years of life that I have wanted within 3 months. I plan to spend every minute in the NOW and just moving from one experience to the next. I plan on returning better than I left. And, well, right now I don't have the bar set too high. It should be easy.

I will do my best to go to town and check my phone once every couple of days. Call in a search party if you haven't heard from me by September. Vaya con dios, bitches!

Moab

What You See Is What You Get

I planned on waiting until I got home to write this, but as I drove away from Moab, my own personal Mecca, I felt like something was still missing. I had told a friend that I planned to "rinse off" all of the ugliness from the last little while by taking a swim in the Colorado.

Between all of the Jeeping and barefoot strolls on the sandstone, I had plenty of time to think and clear my head, but didn't have a chance for a dip in the river.

So, I pulled off in Green River just a few minutes ago and drove into Green River State Park right at dusk. The nice guy at the booth didn't even make me pay. I drove down to the boat ramp and parked with my headlights on the dock, quickly stripped to my swimsuit (underwear for the day) and sprinted toward the edge. Sploosh! It is already down below 50 degrees with a pretty chilly breeze. The water wasn't anywhere near warm either. I stayed in long enough to brush the sand and grit from my skin. Drifted downstream about 30 yards, scared some geese, and paddled for the bank.

I found the shore when the fingers of my broken hand sunk into the mud. Damn. The cold and pain were both such an explosion but my eyes and grin were both wide when I came out of the water. I certainly won't call it a "baptism" or anything like that, but it was a great way to end this trip and I do feel so alive.

So, here I am in the parking lot of the Green River Senior Center writing this on my phone instead of waiting to do it at home.

What did I learn?

Wow. Where to begin...

I think first of all it was important for me to realize that throughout my life I have always tried to find a way to define myself. I was a Mormon, a drummer, an adrenaline junkie, a husband, and most recently... a Bionic Gigolo. (Long story and not one we need to get into right now.)

Well, being Jenny's husband was obviously the biggest defining factor of my life. It led to me also being able to define myself as a father.

There is folly in all of this. I get that now. I can only be me. I can only be Dan. As Dan I can choose the activities of my life, but I can't keep allowing this concept of "self" to be such a fluid one.

I also realize that I like the Dan I am quite a bit. I'm a little worse for wear these days but there are still a lot of good miles left in these tires. I've got a good heart that overwhelms me with emotion sometimes, but I think it also makes me a pretty good dad and friend to those I care about.

I do have a LOT to work on though. I need to be okay being alone in my own skin, and this weekend has made that a reality. I relished in the moments I could drift away from the group and bask on the sandstone like a lazy lizard.

I know I need to stop trying to "escape" any of this. There are better and healthier (albeit more difficult) ways to process things.

So, no more hard alcohol until my 29th birthday. I love a good tequila or whiskey, but recently they have caused a lot more problems than fun.

The broken hand... lesson learned. I don't want to be that guy. I hate feeling that much rage. I can't remember what 90's movie it was where the guy gets shot in the leg and his commanding officer says "Want me to give you something to take your mind off that leg?" Then he breaks the guy's finger. Anyway, there may have been some of that going on.

There were plenty of times it felt like the knife in my chest was being twisted deliberately, but I'm done thinking about all of that. I'm done trying to understand why things went the way they did or torturing myself with all of the "what if?" questions. I am done wishing for second chances. Time to just move on. Get all of the papers finished ASAP and get Jenny's name taken off my back. Haha. It makes me chuckle to realize I literally have to get her off my back. But, I am also glad to now be at a point where I'm not doing it in a moment of hurt or anger. It is just time.

Surprisingly, I also found out on this trip that there is some correlation between my relationship with Jenny and my relationship with "God" or whatever else might be out there.

1. I don't understand either of them
2. I don't want to have any hard feelings toward either of them
3. I don't want to have to rely on either of them or allow them to control my mind and emotions
4. I want to feel more gratitude toward them than anything else
5. I really REALLY don't understand either of them... but I'm okay with that. I don't need to. The existence of God and the way Jenny's mind works can both remain a mystery to me. I'm cool with that now.

I don't plan on setting foot back in a church or praying for help to find my keys. But, this trip has put me back in touch with something. Standing on top of a 1,000 foot cliff and watching the shadows of clouds as they pass the valley floor below. Running red sand through my fingers. Watching a bird hover in the wind. Noticing how fast I am already healing and how geniunely awesome it is that my body can create new skin out of cheeseburgers and thin air. All of those things make me HOPE that there is something bigger than me out there. Those things and so many others make me grateful for what I have.

During 2011 I have felt more intense pain than I ever thought possible, but I also have to keep things in perspective. So many people have dealt with so much worse. Just because it hurts more than I've ever known doesn't mean I'm not being a crybaby. It could be worse. I don't need to analyze why the only relationship I've ever had that lasted more than 3 weeks was a 7-year marriage. There is a LOT of things I'm done trying to analyze.

They joy my daughters have given me is infinitely greater than the pain their mother has caused. I should be grateful for that. I should be glad that I still have a job, no criminal record, no DUI charges, no STDs, etc.

Most of all I should be grateful that I still have such a wonderful relationship with my daughters and grateful that their mother encourages that. I should be happy to be alive. I don't want anything else taken away before I realize how much they mean to me.

I want calm and serenity. I don't want fights. I don't want the angst and confusion of unanswerable questions. I just want to work on being me. I have nothing to hide. I'm laying all of the bad out there with the good. No secrets. No skeletons. Really, what you see is what you get. If that makes me impossible to stay married to, so be it.

And, like Dave Matthews says, "If God don't like me he can send me to hell."

I need to make improvements and patch up some pretty big holes, but I can't try to define myself as anything other than Dan or feel like I have to keep apologizing to people for who I am.

Here I am. I'm grateful for all that I have. I'm far from perfect. Take it or leave it.

Oh yeah, and thank you for Moab... whoever/whatever you are.

Dan.

The Season of Fresh Starts

Last day of tax season and the fourth day of fresh air. 2011 has been full of surprises. The last week has been full of new beginnings. Plain and simple - I just feel good. Sometimes I miss my little girls more than I can stand but I am grateful for the support system they have and know that when all is said and done, both of their parents want the same thing - for them to be safe and happy.

I'm sure I have a long list of apologies to make after the last few months. Someday I'll have the energy and backbone to get to each of them individually, but for now let's just say that I hold no grudges and just want to let bygones be bygones. It's Spring. It's a new day. All we can do with the past is accept that it will remain firmly cemented behind us... as long as we keep facing forward, that is. Sometimes good people make uncharictaristically bad choices, I know that better than anyone. Fourtunately that doesn't make them bad people. I'm so grateful to have old friends back and to have made some new ones.

I want to be happy. I want the mother of my daughters to be happy. We both want the best for them. Despite anything else that happens/happened, that still puts us on the same "team" doesn't it? I mean, it has to.

I think [hope] the ride is over

Hurt, anger, confusion, fear... all of these powerful forces that can combine into a Molotov Cocktail of emotions. When that burning rag reaches the neck of the bottle, the explosion can drive people to do and say things they normally wouldn't dream of.

When you're riding an avalanche you know better than anyone that you're pointed downhill. All you can do is just fight for every inch in the hope that you'll still be able to dig yourself out once it's all over. Fingers crossed that it really is safe to start digging.

So, yeah, now what?

I have felt that writing tickle so many times during the last month but I haven't known where to go with it since my last post. So much has happened. So much I really DON'T want to talk about. I don't want to rehash old relationships or discuss new ones. I don't want to expunge my moments of pain onto paper.

I am really trying hard to remember the truce. I am trying hard to remember the rule about keeping your mouth shut unless you have something nice to say. My jaw aches from the effort it takes to keep my mouth shut.

Oh well. It is all just one side of the story. I have to just do my own thing and try to make the good days outnumber the bad ones. I have also made it a goal to only surround myself with people who genuinely care about my well-being. In the past few weeks I have looked for the easiest distraction. That attitude "worked" for a while but it isn't going to leave me in any better shape than before I started. I need to keep good people in my corner. The fact that they are also fun people is just a cool bonus!

Spending time with my daughters always puts everything back into perspective and instantly lines up all of the skipping gears in my life. It is like the moment I lay eyes on them... everything is okay. Everything is pure and good and the world is a kinder place.

I won't get into what happens when I have to take them "home" and their positive influence is removed. But if you can imagine how seeing them immediately brings things together for me, you can probably also imagine the awful racket and clattering those pieces make as they fall back to the floor when I have to watch them walk/drive away. Some days I can handle that better than others, but the drive away from them is always a cold and dark process. Seeing how much they change from one week to the next is also excruciating. Realizing how much I am missing out on - brutal.

But gratitude will always reign supreme as long as I keep my head above water. I get to have those beautiful little girls in my life. I still get to spend time with them. They still love me and miss me when I'm not around. Things could really be so much worse, and I have to remind myself that.

I am trying to focus on the things that get me out of my head - in a good way. Longboarding - playing guitar - listening to music - working on a book - talking with stable and intelligent friends. Unfortunately, there are also other means of escape that don't take nearly as much effort, but those lead to guilt, hangovers and the occasional broken hand.

Usually when I sit down to write I have a general idea of where I am headed. Even though that isn't the case today, I do want to be able to still use my blog.

"If you don't have anything nice to write, don't write anything at all."

That chasm is both wide and deep and the ledge surrounding it keeps getting more narrow and crumbly, but I think it is still walkable. I am trying. I did call a truce.

Remember the truce.

"It's a long story, full of sighs."

I made the mistake earlier of trying to call this the "full" story. I realize now that what I was calling "full" was really just me deciding that page 5 was a good stopping point. Of course it can't include every detail but from my point of view it is as complete as an account of a crumbling marriage could be in the given space.

People continuously ask me why Jenny and I are getting a divorce. What I have written below is how I saw things play out, but I know it certainly isn't the "full" story and doesn't include every sordid detail.

Despite contrary opinions, it is honest. Brute honesty is all I have had energy for lately. The brain/mouth filter that was functioning poorly while I was married has now been completely removed. I'm straight-piping it now. Loud and obnoxious, but I think that is the only way to roll when you've got nothing left to lose.

This is how I saw things play out and the key moments in the mutual decision as I saw them. Jenny might give you a different answer if you asked her the same question. I'm sure she would at least be kind enough to give you a shorter answer! ;)

I still love Jenny dearly. She is still the best thing that has ever happened to me. We are still best friends. We want to work together for as long as we live to raise our beautiful daughters as a team and always be there for them and each other in any way that we can.

But, the question remains; Does all of the above mean that we should do those things as husband and wife?

Since April 24, 2004, I have moved Jenny all over the place. We lived in Florida, Indiana, Texas, and all over Utah. She even spent the better part of a month living in a cow pasture in Wyoming so that I could try writing for a newspaper. We have gone from one side of the religious spectrum to the other. We have fluctuated wildly in so many aspects of our lives – financially, emotionally, physically, sexually, spiritually… the list goes on and on.

Jenny is like a glassy lake at dawn. She is a natural nester and the embodiment of patience. She is a giver and always aims to please. She is very hard not to love. She is amazing.

I am chaos personified. I am a nomad, an adventurer, a cultivator of crazy ideas and unrealistic schemes.

In our clashing, we somehow fit. People talk about how opposites attract, and that may have been the case. I may have provided Jenny with an excitement that she needed and she has worked her ass off every day of our relationship to keep my feet on the ground.

I relied on her for everything. I made her take the responsibility of being my voice of reason. I let my daydreams carry me into the clouds without a second thought and always left her tugging the rope to bring me back to earth. The fact that I didn't realize I was doing all of that until now does not change the toll it took on her. In fact, it is barely more than a shitty consolation prize.

I was Phillip, the hyper-hypo. Jenny was my harness. Or better yet, my Jungle Gym, considering how often I dragged her around. Our marriage was the harness.

Do I think I am to “blame” for the demise of our marriage? Yes and no. I really did try. In fact, I always kept her at the very top of my priority list. I wrote her a book. I tattooed her name on my back. I never imagined life without her. We were always faithful to each other. We rarely fought. At times, we were the couple everyone else wanted to be. Our relationship made other people jealous. We were incredible together.

A while ago I was driving to work, still half asleep. It was about 6:50 in the morning and I was running late… again. For some reason, I felt very compelled to take the Beck Street exit. I almost always take 600 North into downtown. I don’t know why I felt that need. I don’t know who or what was responsible for it. God, intuition, the universe, the devil… the damned flying spaghetti monster, who knows? Who cares? Does it really even matter at this point?

I don’t think so.

I also almost always remember to wear my seatbelt, at least on the freeway. That morning I didn’t. I was speeding, doing over 50 mph on Beck Street and reaching into the back seat to pull a lemonade Rockstar out of the box I had back there.

When I turned to look back at the road, I was face to face with a Tesoro semi that was barreling diagonally across all 4 lanes into oncoming traffic. He was so far over that I my only option was to swerve left. We were mere inches apart. I was amazed that I even kept my mirror.

I popped out behind the trailer to find myself in the far oncoming lane and face to face with another car. That time I went right, but there was another in that lane so I had to come back left. I bounced over the curb and ended up on the lawn by the old museum there. The whole thing was over in a matter of seconds. There were no accidents. When I was able to peel my fingers from the wheel and look around, the semi and two other cars were gone.

I got ahold of myself and backed the Civic onto the road and went to work.

I knew that if I had hit the semi head-on I would have died. There really is no question about it. Even if I had been wearing a seatbelt, my survival chances would have been slim.

A few days later I started reading a little more about near death experiences and the emotional and psychological impact they can have. I understood the accounts from other people about feeling an intense mental clarity and love. I felt like every minute I had was a bonus minute. I felt a stronger, deeper love for Jenny than I think I ever have.

In that state of heightened mental clarity, I could also see how much chaos I had created for Jenny and the girls. I realized that I was always the one rocking the boat. I wondered if she could go back and talk to her 19-year-old self, would she encourage her to marry me?

The answer to that might still be yes. Despite the complications I created for Jenny, I do feel like I was good for her in many ways. I helped her realize how much she has to offer. I helped her stand up for herself and not get walked all over. I think I opened up her world a little bit – maybe not always for the better but she does have those experiences now.

Also, Emma and Abbi are incredible kids. We should both be very happy and grateful for the time we had together because of the beautiful children it generated.

The old adage, “If you love something set it free” was in my mind that morning after my close call.

So, I sat down and poured it onto paper - in much of the same way I am now, I suppose. I told her that I didn’t want anything to change. I told her that I loved her more than anything. I told her that I wanted to stay together. But, I also told her that I didn’t want to do any of that at her expense. I offered to be there as her best friend and loving father to our children. I gave her an invitation… an opportunity to second-guess the decision she’d made almost 7 years earlier. I wanted her to think about it and what it would mean for the next 40 years of her life.

She did exactly that. She took some time and thought about it. She came back scared by what she realized. She also didn’t want anything to change but understood that what I was saying made a lot of sense.

Jenny is so selfless and giving that she rarely thinks about herself and the things that are getting to her unless someone points it out to her. Then she lets go of that stress and is amazed by how relieved she feels to have it gone. That is basically what happened in this case. I am too smart for my own good sometimes. I could see it playing out in my head and dreaded the consequences, but the love was so intense that morning that it almost felt like I couldn't spend another day without offering to let her go. The days of me regretting sending that email are not over, I'm damn sure of that. But when she looked me in the eyes a week or so later and admitted that she was relieved she wasn't going to be married to me anymore, I knew I should have seen it coming. I had given her a glimpse of "freedom" from the Dan tornado and I don't blame her in the slightest for wanting it.

Picture the Jungle Gym, being yanked again and again and again. Picture Mike Myers in his helmet, jumping and pulling and struggling - totally oblivious to what is going on behind him. He thinks it will be really fun to live in a trailer on 40 acres in a cow pasture. He thinks we should leave all of our electronics behind and live in the Montana cabin for an entire summer. He thinks it would be really cool to cash out the 401(k) and go live in Panama with the kids. He wants to cliff dive and bungee jump and fly in a wingsuit. He is a pasty, chunky and whiney glob all winter, and wannabe mountain man in the summer, brimming with more testosterone than a slab of hormonally treated beef. He pulls and he pulls and he pulls.

“Let’s just go for it! Let’s have an adventure! I don’t want to plan it. I don’t want to hear about schedules. Come with me! It will be fun!”

That harness pops and twangs as he pulls. It goes from slack to tight, snapping over, and over, and over…

And the Jungle Gym just stays there and takes it.

Now, what if instead of giving the hyper-hypo chocolate you instead cut the harness? You aren’t really sure where the he will run with his new freedom, but you do know where the Jungle Gym will be – cemented into the same spot. Finally having a chance to take a deep breath of fresh air – time to relax and listen to the laughter of playing children. Time to enjoy the afternoon breeze.

The truth is, the hyper-hypo will run and thrash for a little while. He will sprint back and forth past the Jungle Gym, glancing over at the cut harness and not really sure what to do about it. He will buy a new pocket knife because he thinks he might ride his motorcycle to Moab to clear his head. Then he will drive to Wyoming and get a job working on an oil rig - a job that he won't ever really start because the atrophied logic quadrant of his brain is kicking off the cobwebs and firing back into working order. With the Jungle Gym there to keep him tethered, he never needed to use that part of his brain. He let it run out of gas and forgot about it completely.

Eventually he will calm down and sit on a bench at the other side of the playground, close enough to still have the Jungle Gym in view. (In this case the bench is a rented room on Foothill drive.)

That is pretty much how it happened. That morning I realized what I had been doing all of this time. I wanted her to have the chance to experience that relief and decide whether or not she wanted to make it permanent. I wanted her to have calm and consistency. I wanted her to have the man and life I think she deserves, even if I am not able to deliver. I also didn’t want either of us to try to be any more or less than who we are. For all of these years I really felt like I was meeting her in the middle, though I realize now that she was pulling a lot more weight than I was. I stayed at the office job I despise because I always wanted to feel like I was taking care of her. All things considered, we were very good for each other.

This whole situation reminded me of a Buddhist teaching I once read. It is about a man who is on a long journey and reaches a wide river that he must cross. At the bank of the river he finds a boat. He climbs in and paddles the boat to the other side. During his time in the river, the boat is the most important thing to him. He needs it. It is crucial to his journey.

However, when he reaches the other side of the river, he must leave the boat behind. It makes no sense for him to haul it out of the water and drag it over land. That wouldn’t be sensible, it would just be exhausting. He may be very grateful to the boat for the important part it played in his journey, but to continue he must leave it behind.

I told Jenny about that story and theorized that our marriage has been a lot like that. I think I was her boat. Although, in our version we had a little more fun with it – instead of a man and a boat it is a hot chick and a Jet Ski!

The concept is still there. Neither of us wants Jenny to have to haul around that Jet Ski any longer.

I hope this puts any rumors or questions to rest. There was no big fight. There was no cheating. There was no big skeleton discovered in someone’s closet.

We held each other and sobbed and confessed our love for each other. We both want so badly for the other to be as happy as they can be. We want the other to be exactly who they are and feel no need to try to adapt or change unnaturally in an attempt to “fit” the marriage. We spent 24 hours in the car the next day, holding hands and laughing with the girls as we listened to Despicable Me for the 19th time. We went home and made love.

It hasn’t all been easy. There have been nights of bitter tears. We have coped with the transition very differently. Jenny, still a calm as a glassy lake has thrown herself into holding it together for the girls and trying to keep our family machine running the way she always has. She works out and organizes and gradually I am trying to help “un-Dan” the house.

I, on the other hand, had a brief and ugly destructive stint. It really is just another example of how opposite we are. Jenny cleans out a cabinet. I get drunk and sob behind a bar. I sign up for a cage fight. I have another beer and try to fight a Dodge.

Jenny has a clean and organized cabinet. I have a broken hand.

Are you starting to get the picture? I hope so.

She has been kind and generous and selfless throughout this process. She hasn't asked for anything and has even given back some of what I left her. She carefully packed bins of silverware, plates, cups, towels and other essentials I had forgotten. It is strange to start over. You go grocery shopping and go back to your place to fix a salad and then realize that you don't own a fork. She is still taking care of me.

I have had moments of selfish weakness. I have begged her to take me back, but those were only the times I was thinking more for myself than I was for her.

I will always love Jenny. As this transition moves on that love is also changing. Sure, I still think she is smoking hot but now that romantic love is being replaced by the growing love I have for the person she is. I love the mother she is to our girls. I am forever grateful to her and in her debt for the part she has played in my life. I want nothing more than for her to be happy.

For our friends and loved ones: please don’t walk on eggshells around us. We don’t! There are no sides to this. You don’t need to pick allegiances. There won’t be a divvying up of friends process down the road.

Jenny and I hung out all day yesterday. We drove and held hands and talked for hours. We caught up on what is going on in the other one’s life. She brought the girls out and saw my place. We got a coffee. It was just delightful! Seeing them always makes my day. Watching them drive away is still hard – on both of us, I think.

But we remain convicted that this is the right move for us. That may change. This is all still very new and we are both in uncharted waters right now.

We are moving on, though. And, most importantly, just like when we were married we both want our relationship to keep getting better.

I think we are doing a pretty good job of working toward that future – maybe not married, but still together.